


What Burns Are The Minutes

by starfleetdicks



Series: What the Darkness Left Behind [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, McSpirk - Freeform, Mild Language, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Star Trek: Beyond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7698508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfleetdicks/pseuds/starfleetdicks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve always known I’ll die alone.” </p><p>The admission is so matter-of-fact that Spock cannot help but let it linger in silence, looking back into Kirk’s eyes and trying to fathom what has led him to this moment. Spock feels like he can only cling to the wreckage and wait.</p><p>“Jim,” McCoy rasps and Kirk looks to the doctor again but Spock cannot.</p><p>Set after <i>Beneath Time's Passing Breath</i>, post STXII. As Kirk is recovering, Spock and McCoy spend a lunch together with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Burns Are The Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Irving Layton's poem "Whatever Else Poetry is Freedom."

Kirk eats voraciously. It is to be expected after a long diet of McCoy-approved liquids and nutrient packs. He had wanted to ease Kirk back into life among the living. Mostly, it seemed to test Kirk’s limited patience. 

“I didn’t starve you,” McCoy grumbles, watching Kirk just as Spock is. They both have elected not to order food. Perhaps for the best, as it is less than appetizing to watch Kirk nearly unhinge his Terran jaw to eat his burger. 

The only acknowledgement that Kirk gives McCoy is a short grunt. Otherwise, he barely pauses in his meal other than to take sharp, quick sips of his soda. The soda had nearly caused a quarrel at the ordering stand. McCoy had already allowed a burger but a soda? Kirk was pushing it. It did nothing to stop their captain. As if the coma had never happened, the fall from space, the fight with Khan, Kirk smiled his brightest smile and pressed the button for a large soda. 

Spock is sure it has something to do with McCoy’s love for Kirk that he does not refuse him. 

When the tray is cleared of even the last crumb, Kirk leans back in his chair and sighs. They are relatively alone in the food court, despite this particular museum usually drawing large crowds. The event with Khan has taken its toll on commercial tourist attractions. There is still unrest within all major Terran cities and a somber tone on the streets. All flags fly at half mast for Federation officers and Terran citizens. 

Kirk fiddles with the drawstrings of his academy running shorts. “I missed this,” he confides quietly, risking a glance at McCoy who has been glaring at a horned dog and its owner trespassing. Animals, Spock recalls, are not allowed in the museum. McCoy glances at Kirk before dropping his gaze to the table. It has been like this since Kirk woke, the two unable to look at one another in moments of sincerity. 

“Eating burgers?” Spock asks to break the tension. 

The sight of Kirk laughing with his head thrown back seems to ease McCoy’s tension. His shoulders slump and he steals Kirk’s soda to sip. “No,” Kirk answers when he’s composed himself. He makes no comment on his commandeered beverage. “It just feels like the last time any of us relaxed was before the Nibiru mishap. I missed just... being around the two of you without worrying one of us might die.”

Spock does not remind Kirk that one of them has now, technically, died. 

“Jim,” McCoy mumbles, as if he’s thinking the same thing as Spock. 

“You know,” Kirk manages to sneak his soda back out of McCoy’s hands, “I dreamt about you two while I was, uh, sleeping.” He cringes as he substitutes the word sleeping for what it truly was. Kirk has been avoiding correct nomenclature on behalf of McCoy, who still regularly wakes from nightmares where Kirk’s heart monitor registers flatlining. Spock, for his part, has nightmares where he never reaches the reactor core to give Kirk solace in his last moments. Kirk sleeps the least, when he can avoid being caught by McCoy, and has taken to running at odd hours. 

McCoy only frowns, eyeballing Kirk suspiciously. “What kind of dreams, Jim?”

Kirk winks at him. “Nothing too untoward, my dear southern gentlemen.” He tips his head back to look above them at the painted ceiling. The museum pamphlet describes the work as inspired by Théodore Géricault’s _After the Deluge_ from the Terran year 1819. Its depictions of Terrans clinging to wreckage feel apt. “More like, dreams of us all on the _Enterprise_ again. Sometimes, we were older men. Sometimes we weren’t men at all.” He half-smiles to himself at that and Spock is curious what they were, if not men. “Once, I dreamt Spock talked to me telepathically which was weird.”

McCoy shoots a quick look at Spock. 

Spock tries not to let the embarrassment and shock linger on his face for more than the microsecond he knows they appear. Kirk, at least, is still engrossed in the ceiling. 

“Called me Jim too, like you do, Bones.” 

“Hell, must have been a dream then,” McCoy deflects. “Can barely get him to call me anything but doctor!”

Spock clears his throat. “Did you find these dreams to be meaningful, Captain?”

Kirk finally looks at him, lips quirked again in his ever-constant grin. He rolls his eyes in McCoy’s direction. It says to Spock, _case in point_. He does not dignify the eye rolling with commentary. “Not sure yet. I dreamt about the day Pike recruited me. My parents, too.” He taps the PADD on the table, Spock’s constant companion as he files reports to prep the _Enterprise_ for the five year mission while Kirk is on recovery. “I kept hearing my dad’s voice from the logs of his last moments.”

McCoy reaches out, covering Kirk’s hand with his own. The look on his face is all concern, a common occurrence since the coma. “Jim, maybe we should do a few more psych evals before the five year?”

“Nah. I’m sure my brain was just freaking out while you were busy healing me. Had to give me something to listen to while I was shut off.” Kirk does turn his hand over to briefly squeeze McCoy’s hand before pulling away. 

“Doctor McCoy’s concerns are valid, Captain. If you are mentally unfit for command--”

“I’m of sound mind, Spock.”

“Dammit, Jim, you don’t take a trip from hell and back and get to make decisions about your mental health.”

“You did technically die, Captain.”

Kirk grimaces but waves his hand flippantly, riling McCoy further who seems to vibrate in his seat with annoyance. “It doesn’t matter. I knew I’d be fine.” 

“Fine, he says! I had a helluva time trying to yank you back from the devil himself, Jim!” McCoy shouts, slamming one hand on the table, and pointing a finger threateningly with the other.

Spock merely reaches over, silently wrapping his hand around McCoy’s wrist. McCoy pulls away nearly in the same instant, face red from more than just anger. Kirk is silent throughout the entire motion, face pensive. Finally, he says, “I knew I wouldn’t die.”

“The radiation in the chamber alone was enough to...” Spock cannot bring himself to finish, but Kirk is interrupting anyway. 

“Yeah,” Kirk huffs, “Scotty said. It should have killed me before I made the climb. I’ll admit it, I wasn’t sure until I dragged myself back to the door.” He stares Spock down, blue eyes bright, as he says, “I knew I wouldn’t die because you were with me. And at some point, I knew Bones would be too.”

“I carried you to the medical bay.” It had been logical to take Kirk to the med bay as soon as the chamber had been safe to open but there had also been a part of Spock that felt it necessary to show McCoy, to give him a chance to say goodbye. 

Kirk nods. “I’ve always known I’ll die alone.” 

The admission is so matter-of-fact that Spock cannot help but let it linger in silence, looking back into Kirk’s eyes and trying to fathom what has led him to this moment. Spock feels like he can only cling to the wreckage and wait.

“Jim,” McCoy rasps and Kirk looks to the doctor again but Spock cannot. He remembers all too well the drawn look he had observed in the emergency medical suite. Spock does not need to see it again. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

There is a silence so long that Spock is sure Kirk will refuse to elaborate. “It’s a gut feeling, something I’ve always felt. When I’m with Spock, I know he’ll do everything he can to protect me or bring me back to the medbay. If I’m with you, Bones, there’s no doubt you’d reach into my chest to restart my heart if you had to. I’m only worried when I’m alone, when there’s only myself to count on. I’m not--” Kirk chokes on the next words, clearing his throat before he can continue haltingly. “I’m not a survivor, not really. I just get lucky or have people around me who care. I spent so many years trying to get someone to notice me, trying to court death because I didn’t think I was important. Now... There are four hundred plus souls on this ship who are my family, who take care of each other whether they want to or not. If I die, it won’t be on the _Enterprise_ or with either of you at my side. If I never make it back, it’s because I can’t be with either of you, the crew, or the ship. I should have died in that radiation chamber but I didn’t.”

“I should have been there sooner,” Spock answers first while McCoy hastily wipes away tears he can not stop. 

Kirk smiles again, not reaching to touch Spock but his wish to is clear. Spock holds out his hand instead. Kirk’s touch ignites a plethora of overwhelming feelings that itches across Spock’s palm. It makes his throat feel tight and the corner of his eyes burn but he does not let go. “It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I’d have never let you go in.”

“There could have been another way.”

“There wasn’t. I promise.” Spock hears from Kirk’s touch: _In the meld, I saw..._ Out loud, Kirk says instead, “Ambassador Spock had told me once about a time he had to do the same for his crew.” 

Spock tries not to let it show that he knows the half-lie for what it is. The rest, of course, he had felt himself. There had been no mistaking an unexplainable sense of deja vu as he ran through the corridors, as if he had ran the route a thousand lifetimes before. Spock thinks of his elder. Maybe he had. 

McCoy settles a hand on Kirk’s thigh, looking grave. “I understand you not wanting Spock to do it. I really do. But did it have to be you? Does it always have to be you, Jimmy? You don’t know what it does to me, seeing you stretched out on those biobeds. One of these days, I won’t be able to do it, Jim. I won’t be able to bring you back. What will I do then? Cause I sure as hell won’t be able to stay on the goddamn ship. What would I do without you?” 

Spock cannot help but pull away from Kirk’s touch at that because he cannot survive the surge of guilt and regret and love he feels from Kirk mingling with his own. McCoy is crying again and there is no hiding the distress both he and Kirk felt at that. 

All at once, Kirk is curled around McCoy and holding him tight. He is whispering and patting McCoy’s back but it is still loud enough for Spock to hear. “It won’t happen, Bones. You always save me. I won’t ever leave you, promise. Not even if the afterlife has really really hot angels.”

McCoy laughs despite his tears and one day Spock hopes to learn how Kirk does that, so successful dissolves McCoy’s pain and frustration. 

“I love you, you damn fool.”

“I know,” Kirk responds, not letting McCoy go even when the doctor not-so softly punches him in the side.

“I know? You better have a better answer, you ass.”

“It’s not exactly a confession. I mean you said it like every time you were drunk, Bones.” Kirk pulls away to kiss McCoy gently on the lips and wipe away his tears. “Hard to be surprised. Isn’t it obvious I feel the same way?” 

They share a silent moment, simply staring into each other’s eyes before McCoy scoffs. “Spock wasn’t surprised when I told him either while you were in your coma. Should have been my hint. I thought I was hiding it so well.”

McCoy had been hiding it about as well as he ever hid any of his emotions. Spock supposes he is not much better. 

Kirk confirms it by smirking and asking, arms still around McCoy, “But how much did you make out with Spock before I woke up?”

“You little... I was busy saving you, remember? There was no time for making out!”

“But so you wanted to.”

“I swear to Jesus and all his disciples, I giveth and I can taketh away, James Tiberius Kirk.”

Spock leans back, stealing Kirk’s soda as he watched their argument. He lets them banter for a few moments longer before pushing his chair back. “We should head back. You still need your rest, Captain.”

With a long suffering sigh, Kirk picks up his tray to dispose of and nods. “Yeah. I can tease Bones later.” He bumps Spock’s shoulder on the way to the trash can, looking happy again. “I wouldn’t mind it, you know? If you liked Bones or you guys kissed while I was asleep.”

Spock raised an eyebrow at Kirk before leaning down to whisper in his ear, “Captain, while I have not done so, I would not be averse to kissing McCoy and I have evidence to support that he feels similarly. However, both of us are far more concerned with you right now. I would very much like to kiss you as well.”

The back of Kirk’s neck is red when Spock pulls away. It is too tantalizing to ignore so Spock settles for a soft Terran kiss there, just beside where the edge of Kirk’s old academy shirt begins. Kirk gasps clutching his tray so tightly that his knuckles turn white. “Spock,” he whines and McCoy is next to him in a flash. 

“Don’t even think about it. No attention of the sort for a month. Kirk’s body is still recovering and we haven’t even talked about how we’re going to all sort out our feelings.”

“I presumed we would settle on a threesome, Doctor.”

Kirk lets out another soft noise, dumping his disposable tray in the trash. “Stop. I can already barely walk, Spock.”

“Well the sex will be easy, Spock. I’m talking about the emotions. Oh wait, I forgot, you don’t have those,” McCoy snarked. 

Spock chuckles and pretends not to notice as Kirk and McCoy look at each other in shock. He instead continues to lead the way to their temporary quarters as they wait for the ship to be repaired. Of all the things they have been through, Spock has a feeling that their relationship will be the most seamless. 

After all, they were meant to be at each other’s sides.


End file.
